The bus trip over the Andes, what a view! We definitely recommend the bus trip (by day), one of the best scenic drives we know of. We just hope our photos through an irritatingly reflective bus window do it justice.

On the Chileno side of the pass, the road follows the valley for a way, before turning and snaking directly up one of the mountains. We didn't count the number of bends, but it was an incredible road which you can make out reasonably well in our photos.

We did get a little concerned when we passed through what we thought was Chilean customs where we easily passed through the boom gate. So we're in Argentina? Several concerned kilometres later we pulled into a massive shed. Ah, so this is immigration. After being stamped out of Chile and into Argentina we were legitimately in Argentina!

The rest of the drive is as picturestic as the first part. Almost as soon as we passed immigration, the rock colours changed dramatically from greys to reds and whites, and things started to get a lot greener than what we'd seen in Chile. Finally after 7 hours we arrived in Mendoza and to the hostel in time to head out to the Sunday 'Markets' we read so much about. It was interesting to see all those out and about for the evening and we had a nice dinner of bife de pollo (chicken steaks).

Monday morning, and Mendoza with its 300 days of sunshine is cloudy! So we booked in for a wine tour for the afternoon. With 4 hours to kill before then we walked the tourist map and checked out the sights.

We soon discovered a wine tour here differs greatly to those in Aus. It's less about the tasting (drinking), and more about the process of wine making! We actually understand a lot more about making wine. The tour involved 2 wineries and an olive oil farm, quite a good combination. At each winery we tasted 2 reds, however they didn't let us taste the 3rd best Carmanere in the world.

On Tuesday we walked up Parque General San Martin to the statue at the top. Nick (the American guy from our Spanish course) and his wife Kathy are also in Mendoza at the moment and we planned to meet with them at some point. We actually bumped into them as we left the hostel. After a long coffee and a chat (finally a semi decent coffee) we decide to take the walk together.

With what we thought was an adequate map and a short stroll, we found ourselves lost and needing water. Thankfully we recieved some help from some lovely people and 2 women who offered to drive us up to the the Zoo and the short cut to the top. Freshly watered and enjoying the stench of animal manure we headed for the top where the view was beautiful, looking out over Mendoza and the surroundings.

Walking back down to the Zoo there was a taxi waiting, a much better option to get back into town. We had time for a late lunch and some Argentinian beef!

Wanting an activity for tomorrow, we popped into a few tourist places in the main street after lunch to check out what they were offering, and decided on a tour to Villavicencio, mainly because it was the only half day affordable tour on offer.

This morning we rose early to make sure we were ready for our 8am pickup, which ended up being 8.55, to Reserva Villavicencio. Hotel Villavincencio is in an area that produces natural spring water that is piped from right near the hotel to the bottling plant in the valley. This hotel was built along what used to be the major route between Chile and Argentina, and includes large gardens, baths (that used to have thermal waters from up the mountain piped down to fill them) and a chapel on the grounds, as well as a hose from which we could fill our own bottles with fresh spring water.

We joined the tour knowing it would only be given in spanish, but fortunately a group of missionaries from the US were also on the tour, and one of them had been living in Mendoza for 5 years and was able to translate a lot for the rest of us. The hotel closed in the 70's after the new road was built, but they are apparenty going to do some renovations and turn it into a museum in the next couple of years.

After touring the hotel grounds, we headed up the hill a little further to a lookout, from where we could see the hotel in the valley below and the mountain surrounds. While we didn't go all the way up, this road has 365 bends as it snakes (or snails as they say here) its way toward Chile along the mountain sides.

With some time to kill in the afternoon after the tour and before our bus, we had some lunch and did some rather unsuccessful research in the hostel before trudging through the streets back to the bus station, bound for Cordoba.

LAPFWT